December 1, 2023
In a meeting with American news editors during his visit to New York City, President Raisi complained they were censoring important stories and said they should pay more attention to those stories than to fake news about Iran.
The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) said Raisi “raised tough questions regarding the coverage of critical issues by the US mainstream media, exposing disparity and double-standards in how they cover issues such as military conflicts, human rights, racism and police brutality.”
Raisi said more than a thousand Americans lost their lives at the hands of the police in the United States over the past year, questioning why the mainstream media did not extensively investigate and report on this matter. He seemed totally unaware of how much news space has been devoted to those deaths.
Raisi also drew attention to a recent incident in the United States where a woman suspected of theft in a store lost her life in an encounter with three police officers. He questioned why the media did not rigorously pursue the investigation into the case. Again, the case has gotten considerable coverage in the American media.
The president also raised concerns about what he called the lack of attention in Western media given hate crimes based on race. He questioned why attacks on individuals due to their ethnicity or skin color are not given significant coverage and attention. Again, these cases have generally received considerable news coverage in recent years.
Raisi highlighted the issue of discrimination against Muslim girls choosing to wear hejab in countries like France. He emphasized the need for the media to address that issue. This no longer gets much attention in the US media, though it did when the French government first banned hejab.
IRNA said Raisi “posed another tough question for American media managers, asking why powerful nuclear states are not held accountable over their possession of nuclear capabilities,” conflating the coverage of news with opinion.
Raisi, said IRNA, “lamented that that nuclear issue, human rights, women’s rights, and the hejab are often used as excuses for selective media coverage in the West.”
Raisi also held a meeting with Iranian expatriates while he was staying in New York. Unlike last year, when the photograph released by the government showed those expats facing the cameras along with Raisi, this year the picture only showed the backs of the heads as the expatriates faced Raisi. A number of the expats got in trouble with the Iranian community last year after they were photographed with Raisi.
Raisi urged the expats to invest more money in Iran, seemingly unaware that US law forbids that.
